


Under the Osmanthus Tree

by Solid_Shark



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, War of Underworld Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29364000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solid_Shark/pseuds/Solid_Shark
Summary: Kirito has returned to the real world, after over two subjective years living in Underworld as a swordsman. Alice Synthesis Thirty has come to the real world for the very first time, after a lifetime as a Knight who lived by the sword.Neither of them know their place, in a world strange to both. Neither of them yet truly know each other, despite their shared trials in Underworld. Together, in learning about each other, they may find their way in the world again--assuming Kirito doesn't first die of embarrassment.
Relationships: Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito/Alice Zuberg | Alice Synthesis Thirty
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	Under the Osmanthus Tree

### Chapter I: Out of Place

###### Monday, August 17th, 2026

“Alice is missing?!”  


Woken from a sound sleep, the fog was quickly chased out of Kirito's head by Koujiro Rinko's message. After finally coming back from Underworld's hyper-realistic VR environment, he'd thought he finally had the chance to just relax and come to terms with everything that had happened.  


Apparently, he was wrong.  


“Was her lightcube taken?” Kirito asked into his phone, hauling himself upright on his bed. “Security should've been tighter, even—no, especially after everything that's happened—”  


_“No, she hasn't been kidnapped,”_ Doctor Koujiro assured him. _“Security footage from around 21:00 last night shows her walking out on her own. Somehow she slipped past the guards and opened the security lock by herself.”_  


Okay. That… wasn't as scary as what he'd thought at first. Still, as he set the phone on his bedside table and hurried to get dressed, he couldn't help but think it was a bad situation. The skills of an Integrity Knight might've allowed Alice Synthesis Thirty to easily evade notice, but he wasn't at all sure she could handle herself past that point. Not without a sword, in a world where Sacred Arts didn't exist.  


“What is she up to?” he muttered, more to himself than to the phone, dragging on a shirt. “She knows she doesn't know this world well enough to….”  


_Oh. Of course. That's exactly why, isn't it?_  


_“I'm worried we've been pushing her too hard,”_ Koujiro said, her pained voice echoing Kirito's thoughts. _“I know being here, in a strange world, has to be difficult for her. But every time I ask, Alice just says she's fine, that she can handle it.”_  


“She would.” Dressed, Kirito snatched up his phone and made for the door. He was tired, he still wasn't back in shape after his latest coma, and he knew it—and he didn't care. Not right then. “She's a knight. She wouldn't show weakness to anyone. Her pride wouldn't allow it.”  


He'd known knights, and he knew Alice. Even his own pride as a mere wandering swordsman had led him to similar behavior, more times than he wanted to admit.  


_“She'd show it to you,”_ the Doctor told him. _“If anyone, it'd be you. And I can't think of anyone else she'd be trying to contact.”_  


“I understand.” Pounding down the stairs to the front door, he detoured only to get the keys to his motorbike and his shoes. “I'll contact you as soon as I find her.”  


Because he _would_ find her. As surely as Kirito knew anything, after everything that had happened in the years he'd spent in Underworld, he knew he'd find Alice. He'd done it before, in a world he didn't even know. In his own world, when she was looking for _him,_ he wouldn't have any problem.  


He just hoped he'd find her before anyone _else_ did.  


Kirito was half a step from the door when the doorbell suddenly rang, stopping him in his tracks. _No way. Could she really have…?_  


He snatched open the door. “Ali—!”  


To the blue-uniformed deliveryman's credit, he seemed completely unperturbed by a wild-eyed teenager shouting half a name at him. “Hi! Package for you, sir!” the man said cheerfully.  


Just back from over two subjective years in another world, woken from a sound sleep into a near-panic, and confronted with the last thing he'd have expected to deal with that day, it took Kirito a few moments to remember how to handle basic deliveries. Soon enough all was in order, though—and his bank balance noticeably lighter—and he was alone with a large box.  


Large, and heavy enough that Kirito almost left it for someone else in the family to deal with later. He would have, too, if he hadn't noticed at the last moment that the sender was _Maritime Resource Assessment Survey_. Rath's Roppongi branch. The handwriting was clumsy, but coherent—and addressed specifically to him.  


_To Kirito,_ he realized. _Not Kirigaya Kazuto. Who… why…?_  


With difficulty, Kirito dragged the surprisingly heavy, seventy-centimeter box inside. Whatever Rath had seen fit to send him, he didn't think it was something that should be opened in full view of the street. As far as he knew, his name hadn't gotten out in connection with the Ocean Turtle incident, but he was not going to take chances.  


Only when he'd gotten it to the living room—and paused to catch his breath—did Kirito sit down, and pull at the tape holding the box closed. Gingerly, he opened the flaps, and peered inside.  


Plastic packing material, clear enough to kind of see through. Underneath… pale curves of something, with long yellow fibers winding through. He blinked, wondering what in the world he'd been sent. Leaned forward to look closer—and found a pair of blue eyes suddenly looking back at him.  


“Wha—?!”  


Startled by the completely unexpected sight, Kirito fell back, starting to topple over, only for a pale hand to snap out of the box and catch his wrist. “Stop screaming,” came the—familiar—exasperated tone. “And help me out of this box, will you, Kirito? This isn't comfortable!”  


_Easy for you to say!_ Kirito wanted to shout. Knowing from plenty of experience just how much worse that would make things, he kept his mouth shut. Took a moment to catch his breath, let his heartbeat slow down. And, just before she could snap at him again, gripped the hand holding his arm, and _pulled._  


Only in hindsight, remembering what he _hadn't_ seen in the box, did he realize that might not have been the best idea.  


The realization was far too late to save him from having a completely naked Alice Synthesis Thirty tumble out of the box and slam him flat on his back. Too late, even, to stop him from reflexively hugging her to try and cushion her fall, pressing an all-too-lifelike softness against his chest.  


Too stunned by the rapid, unexpected sequence of events, Kirito could only stare up into Alice's blue eyes, and wonder just what the hell was happening.  


Then those blue eyes narrowed, and Alice huffed at him. “Do you mind?”  


_Erk!_ Hurriedly, he let go of her, and the moment she pushed herself up he scurried back and turned away. Settling cross-legged, head averted far enough he could only see vague movement out of the corner of his eye, he got out, “What are you doing here?!” He tried to pull his voice down from a high-pitched squeak, without much success. “And why are you naked?!”  


That vague movement was enough for Kirito to make out Alice bending down, reaching back into the box. “Even with this body, fitting into such close confines wasn't easy,” she said, sounding far calmer than he thought she had any right to be. “The uniform made it harder still, and I was afraid of damaging it.”  


Completely logical. Just as completely crazy. Alice's body in the real world might've been mechanical, but it was a surprisingly convincing facsimile. He couldn't imagine she was really that blasé about even that body being seen undressed.  


There was a rustling; Kirito realized she'd packed her Survivor School uniform at the bottom of the box, and was getting dressed. Right in the middle of his living room. “Besides,” she said, after a moment's pause, “I know you were at least occasionally aware, those months I took care of you. You… probably saw me, at least a few times.”  


_Erk._ Most of the time he'd been unconscious within Underworld, after Quinella's defeat, Kirito had been caught in his own nightmares. Sometimes, though, he had had brief moments where he could see the world around him—distorted, as though through water, but clear enough. Thinking back to those dreamlike moments, when the water hadn't just been his fractured psyche….  


Kirito quickly shook his head, trying to dispel the memories. Of himself, and Alice, and a bath. Unable to take care of himself, she'd had to be hands-on—  


“What if I hadn't been the one to take the package?” he said hurriedly. “If it'd been Sugu, or my mother—I don't even want to think about how I'd have explained that!”  


“If it had been one of them, you would not have been there, and I would have explained.” Alice's braid, shorter than her “real” body's but still quite long, swung into his vision as she shook her head. “Do you always worry about nothing? …Oh.”  


There was another pause, and this time Kirito realized she'd stopped moving. “Alice?” he ventured, suddenly worried for a different reason. He knew her robotic body had a limited battery time, and even with conserving power by remaining motionless in the box, it _had_ been some hours since she'd left Rath.  


“Ah… it seems I'm still adjusting to this body.” Another, briefer pause. “And this piece of 'real world' clothing is particularly difficult. …Kirito. I must ask your help.”  


Something about that filled him with dread. Slowly, nervously, he turned to look at her again, not knowing what he might expect after her bizarre arrival.  


To Kirito's relief, Alice at least had her skirt and socks on, so the view wasn't too indecent. It was still a good thing she had her back to him, though, because from the waist up there was still nothing but—artificial, he hurriedly reminded himself—skin. She was apparently trying to fix that, straps dangling behind her back, but her fingers were fumbling at the clasp with no success.  


For a long moment, all he could do was stare. “Um, Alice,” he finally managed, “I don't think I should—”  


“If you'd rather wait for your family to come home, they'll know you saw me like this,” she cut him off. She looked over her shoulder, all-too-familiar impatience in her blue eyes. “Please?”  


Well. Kirito couldn't exactly argue with _that_ logic, and he wasn't going to be stupid enough to suggest she go without. Sighing, hoping the whole thing wouldn't come back to haunt him, he got up and moved to stand behind her. Not that he had any more experience with bras than she did, but at least he could see what he was doing.  


Which didn't make it much easier, when his fingers brushed against Alice's bare skin. Whatever material it was really made of, it felt startlingly lifelike, and even twitched at his touch. Accustomed as Kirito was to the not-quite-life fidelity of standard Full Dive, he couldn't even tell the difference.  


From the soft sound—a gasp, Kirito would've thought, had she any need to breathe—he had the feeling it was just as lifelike from Alice's side.  


He had dark suspicions about why, exactly, Rath had such lifelike robots on hand. That did nothing to change the effect it had on him, in that moment, as his fingers touched Alice's and took over trying to fasten the bra. “So,” he said, trying to distract himself from that smooth skin, “why are you here, Alice? And how? The cameras saw you leave, but then nothing.”  


She shrugged, making it that much harder for him to deal with the clasp. “Once I located the 'cameras', it wasn't difficult to evade them,” she said, folding her arms under her chest. “I allowed them to see me taking the obvious route, came back, and packed myself.” Alice looked back at him again, a faint smirk on her face. “Hardly any different from how I used to sneak out of the Cathedral, when I first became a Knight, to explore the city.”  


“…Oh.” Deliberately focusing on the mechanics of the task at hand, Kirito reminded himself not to underestimate the girl. New to the real world she may have been, but she was also an experienced Knight, and a very clever one at that.  


_And that's what she did just with what she already knows. When she figures out how to operate more technology, she's going to be scary._  


Finally, he managed to wrestle the fastening into submission, and the garment was secured. Yet for a long moment, Kirito couldn't bring himself to back away, his fingers still resting on Alice's back.  


He would've liked to blame it on a VR fanatic's sheer curiosity. Rath really had done an amazing job, mimicking the outer layers of a human body. Combined with the fact that it was a true AI running that body, Alice even escaped the uncanny valley effect that normally plagued human-like robots.  


_How long did Rath know Alice was the “perfect AI”, if they were able to reproduce her appearance this closely?_  


She was, by any measure, as beautiful in the real world as she was in Underworld. That was something Kirito hadn't really had much time to appreciate, between all the time spent in battle in Underworld and convalescing IRL. Now, with Alice in his living room, still only half-dressed, he couldn't help but stare at her. Only with difficulty did he keep his hand from lifting to her hair, to find out if that felt as real as the rest.  


His pocket vibrating broke Kirito from his reverie, and he hastily pulled away. Only as he pulled out his phone did he realize Alice had made no objection to his prolonged touch; all she did was give him a long, inscrutable look, before bending to retrieve her shirt from the box.  


As he accepted the call from Doctor Koujiro, he thought he heard a soft whisper. “Thank you, Kirito….”

###### 

There was something oddly endearing about the way Alice took in the Kirigaya family house. While Kirito spoke quietly with Doctor Koujiro, the Knight-turned-robot girl ran her fingers over the wood paneling, peered closely at the windows, and very gingerly sat herself down on a couch. It was, he thought, almost like a kitten exploring a house for the first time. Even the glass table in the middle of the room seemed to fascinate her.  


The charging cable she then plugged into her hip, and from there to a wall outlet, added an air of sheer unreality to the whole thing. Like two completely different worlds meeting, and merging in a way that didn't quite fit.  


_Kind of how my life's been, ever since I got back,_ Kirito thought, concluding his conversation with Koujiro. _Rath deleted the extra centuries from my memory, but I've still got those two years. To everyone else, it's barely been a month…._  


Deliberately shaking off those dour thoughts—not for the first time—he turned his attention to the girl sitting patiently on the couch. “Doctor Rinko's not mad, Alice,” he told her, smiling wryly. “In fact, the first thing she did was apologize. She's sorry she didn't realize how much stress you were under.”  


Alice subtly but visibly relaxed, impressing him again with the sheer detail that had gone into her robotic body. “I'm sorry I worried her,” she said. “I didn't say anything because I was didn't want to, but this time… I just had to.”  


Having done a fair few reckless things because he'd “had to” himself, Kirito didn't question that. He only nodded, tucked his phone back into his pocket, and sat on the couch opposite hers. “I can understand that much. But, Alice… if you wanted to see me, you could've just asked Doctor Rinko. I'm sure she would've made arrangements.”  


She nodded, hands folded in her lap. “I know,” she said softly. “She's very concerned about me. So concerned that if I'd asked permission to come, she would have sent guards with me, for my safety. …I don't want to be protected, Kirito.”  


Oof. He really should've seen that coming. Of course a proud Knight wouldn't want to be “protected”, after years of knowing she could take care of herself quite well. He'd seen that attitude often enough before, including from his old partner Asuna. _Asuna, Sinon… even Yuuki, really._  


_…Heh. I'm not really that different, am I?_  


Kirito opened his mouth to say as much, but Alice spoke again before he could. “I'm relieved Doctor Rinko hasn't objected, but I am ashamed at the trouble I've caused. Nonetheless… I needed to talk with you, Kirito. Alone. Not with a false image, but with your real, physical body.”  


“Fair enough.” Even before spending two subjective years in the Underworld, he'd occasionally needed to ground himself in reality, with how much of the last few years he'd spent in VR. For Alice, who'd only recently learned of the Real World at all, it had to be even worse. With a wry smile, he continued, “Well, we've got time. Doctor Rinko says you can stay the night here.”  


“Re-really?” Alice's eyes brightened—and then suddenly narrowed, brow furrowing. “In that case, Kirito….” She stood, took two determined steps around the table—and stopped, the charger cable pulling taut. Her eyes darkened, mouth tightening in a grimace.  


Kirito winced, understanding all too well. It reminded him of his first weeks after escaping _Sword Art Online_ , and how it had been a struggle just to move. Only for Alice, it had to be worse. In this world, this was her life, not just a temporary handicap.  


He pushed himself to his feet, moving to match her by the table. She wasn't that much shorter than he was, so he hardly had to look down to meet her eyes. Eyes flashing with determination, and something he'd provoked more times than he liked to remember in the people around him.  


“I'm very angry with you, Kirito,” she told him, her calm voice managing to emphasize her words.  


_Yep. Saw that coming._ “I know.”  


“Then why?” she demanded, glaring up at him. “When last we met, at the World End Altar—when you prepared to face Vector alone. Why didn't you tell me what you were planning? Why didn't you warn me that that might've been the last time we ever saw each other?” Alice's voice rose, hands clenching into fists with just the faintest mechanical whir. “If… if I'd know you would be gone for _two hundred years…_ that we'd never be able to meet again…!”  


Shivering, Kirito tried not to think about that too hard. He didn't remember those two subjective centuries, but he did remember very well how he'd felt when the Maximum Acceleration Phase had begun. When he'd thought he'd be alone for those hundreds of years.  


Finding that Asuna, Sugu, and Sinon had all stayed behind after all, to keep him company—that had been the only thing that had kept him sane. Even then, he'd been very much afraid he wouldn't live to see the real world again. Two hundred years was so close to the limit of a Fluctlight's span….  


“I am a Knight!” Alice shouted at him, and if her body had been capable of crying, Kirito was sure there would've been tears in her eyes. “My birth was unnatural, a crime committed against Alice Zuberg, but I have my honor! My pride! I would _never_ have run away from such a terrible foe had I known you intended to face him alone!” She stepped closer, trembling in her anger. “You sent me away, and almost died because I wasn't there with you!”  


True. Too true. Kirito had fought many strong opponents, in the years since he'd taken the mantle of the Black Swordsman, but Gabriel Miller had probably been the most terrifying. More a malevolent force than a man, he'd been both insanely dangerous and viscerally horrifying. Fighting him alone, Kirito had nearly died, and he wasn't at all sure what would've happened to his Fluctlight if he had.  


He _was_ sure Miller would've done horrible things to the people of Underworld—and when he got out, to the girl who now stood before him. The girl who—  


Who abruptly leaned her head against his left shoulder, as though exhausted. “Why?” she whispered into his shirt. “Why did you choose to face him alone? What am I—what is Alice Synthesis Thirty—to you, Kirito?”  


Sighing, Kirito very gently pulled her close, resting his hands against her startlingly-lifelike golden hair. She had to ask that question, of course. It was one he'd vaguely pondered, back when he was training at the Sword Craft Academy. Back then, he'd barely known who Alice even was. She was someone his friend wanted to rescue, and the _SAO_ clearer in him couldn't accept the idea of a girl being held hostage, but the whole thing had honestly been pretty abstract to him. He'd been more concerned with finding an admin console and contacting Rath.  


He hadn't known, then, that he had any connection with Alice himself. And really, it wouldn't have mattered if he had remembered, since the Alice he'd met at the Central Cathedral—the Alice standing before him now—was not Alice Zuberg at all.  


Alice Synthesis Thirty—she was a woman of honor, and pride. Warm, when not provoked—charming even when she was. Even without everything that had happened to make it all moot, Kirito didn't think he could've gone through with restoring Alice Zuberg. Not when it would've killed Alice Synthesis Thirty.  


What was she to him now, though?  


“You're… my hope,” Kirito said finally, settling on the one thing he knew for sure. The truth born out of all the time he'd spent in the virtual worlds, born of everything he'd learned and thought and experienced in worlds constructed by human hands. Lightly stroking that golden hair, he said, “You're the hope of entire worlds, Alice. The hope of everyone in Underworld, and everyone in this world who loves the other virtual worlds. You're proof that something can be born of all of this.” He smiled down at her. “I… couldn't lose the future that you might create.”  


“…The future…?” Alice craned her neck to look up at him. “What… what kind of future?” She made a noise like she was trying to swallow, but even her body couldn't quite replicate the act. “What future is there for me, with this steel-element body? Attending banquets where I cannot even eat, enduring the loneliness of being 'protected'?”  


He winced at the bitterness in her voice, but couldn't deny her words. In his own way, he felt trapped, caught between worlds. He knew it had to be much, much worse for her. “I honestly don't know yet,” he admitted, tightening his hug. “But just you being here, Alice, here and still alive—the world is changing. Whatever comes, a better future for those who sacrificed their lives, and for those who still survive… that future needs you, Alice. And….”  


_Say it, coward. This once, just come out and say_ something.  


Kirito closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. “Alice. I only knew you, Alice Synthesis Thirty, for a few hours in Underworld. It's only been a month since I came back from that world, and we've both been busy for most of it. I don't really _know_ you, yet.” He hesitated. Forced himself to finish. “I couldn't let you die when I hadn't had the chance to see you _live.”_  


A strange sound, from the girl in his arms. Like a sharp intake of breath, had she the need or ability to breathe. With her face pressed against his shoulder again, he couldn't see her expression, couldn't guess what she was thinking.  


After a long, long pause, Alice pushed herself back a pace, so she could look up at him again. She was smiling now, an odd, inscrutable smile. “That's fair enough, Kirito,” she said, and he was relieved to see her eyes were bright again. “I knew you for six months, but it's hardly as if we were able to speak with each other.”  


Her eyes twitched as if reading something he couldn't see; checking her body's charging process, he suspected. If he understood correctly, Alice's robotic body gave her a HUD not too different from what he was used to in most VRMMOs.  


A moment's scrutiny, and she gave a quick nod. “If Doctor Rinko is allowing me to spend the night—please, show me around your home. I haven't seen a traditional house in your world yet.”  


“Traditional?” Kirito blinked. “This is a pretty normal, modern house. I don't know I'd call it traditional….” He trailed off, thinking. _Aha!_ Snapping his fingers, he flashed her a smile. “Well, if it's traditional you're looking for—I think I know just where to start.”

###### 

Alice had no standard of comparison for homes in the “Real World”. So far, all she'd seen had been the blocky towers that seemed to form the heart of the cities, seeming to her to be steel mimicries of her own world's Central Cathedral—a comparison she honestly could've done without. The residence of the Kirigaya family was the first private home she'd yet seen.  


So when Kirito first told her his house was hardly “traditional”, she really had no idea what he meant. Until, that was, he led her out into the courtyard behind the main building. An open, pebble-strewn place, with a fish-filled pond and a tree she was pleased to recognize as pine. This, she could tell, was something of an older style than the house, something closer to what she understood.  


She listened attentively as Kirito explained the pond, the fish within, and a strange decoration that seemed little more than a wooden tube that filled with water and emptied itself at regular intervals. None of it was quite what she knew from her world, yet it was not so different, either—and then there was the building in the courtyard's northeast corner.  


Kirito described the square, weathered building as “rustic”. Alice, eagerly walking up to the wooden structure, thought it the most familiar thing she'd seen yet in the Real World. It was built of means and materials she understood, and just looking at it she was fairly sure she understood its purpose.  


When Kirito opened the door, she knew. The interior was just open space, with smooth wooden floorboards, and windows along every wall to let in plenty of light. Alice didn't recognize the artwork hanging from the walls, but everything else was familiar enough. _Yes… this place, I know. Finally, something I understand in this world._  


Slipping off her shoes in the local fashion, she turned to her companion. “This… is a training hall, is it not? For swordsmen?”  


Kirito smiled, an expression that made her feel just a bit warmer by itself, and nodded. “Yep. We call it a 'dojo' here.”  


“Dojo….” she repeated. Nodding to herself, she raised her right hand to her chest, holding her left at her waist where she normally kept a sword. This was not her world, but this was a place for training knights. It deserved the courtesy of a knight's salute.  


Alice was pleased when Kirito followed suit with the simpler bow of his own people, before he led her inside. His own style was so unorthodox, she hadn't been sure just how seriously he took the art of the sword. Now she could see, as Sortiliena Serlut had once told her, that he did indeed have the pride of a swordsman, however rough his manner.  


“My great-grandfather built this,” Kirito told her, padding inside, his bare feet nearly silent on the polished floorboards. “Most of the family hasn't really kept up with kendo, though, so Suguha's the only one who uses it much anymore.”  


She nodded thoughtfully, stepping carefully inside. Between her stockings and the smooth floor, she didn't want to risk losing her balance. A month she'd been in the Real World, in a body of steel and strange imitation flesh, yet she was still uncertain of her movements. “Your sister maintains this place admirably. …You don't come here often, Kirito?”  


He winced, clearly understanding her real question. “I… never really got the hang of kendo,” he said quietly. “It's a long story…. It was in another world that I took up the style you've seen me use.” Kirito smiled then, surprising her. He looked… shy, she thought. “When we have time, I'd like to show you.”  


“I'd like that.” So much she still had to learn about him. Alice had taken care of him for six months, yet what he'd said earlier was true: they'd had very little time to talk. Most of what she knew about Kirito, really, came from one night of exchanging stories with Asuna. Her fellow swordswoman had known much, as Kirito's partner in times past, but one night was still far too short a time to learn as much as she truly wanted.  


_Yet there are other ways to learn, between two masters of the blade._  


Decided, Alice walked to a rack full of something she recognized perfectly well, even if the exact form was new to her. Picking one up, testing its heft, she turned to Kirito. “This is a practice sword, correct? Though this style is very different from what I'm used to.” Practice blades in her world were made in direct imitation of live swords. This one was a cylinder, and much lighter.  


“It's called a shinai,” he told her. “Made of bamboo. Kendo usually involves padded armor, but these aren't likely to injure even without that.” He scratched the back of his head, chuckling in obvious reminiscence. “Not like Underworld, where even a practice sword can take off a third of your Life if somebody gets careless.”  


“Ah.” Alice nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose that makes sense, without the benefit of Healing arts in your world. Training must be more cautious.”  


_But it's still something I understand. If… if there's even a chance…._  


Decided, Alice flipped the “shinai” in her hand, extending the hilt to Kirito. “Very well, then. Shall we begin?”  


“Eh—what?” He reflexively took the bamboo sword, blinking at her. “Alice, wh-what are you doing?”  


She picked up another shinai, gripping it carefully in both hands. “This is a training hall, Kirito. There's only one thing to do here. I challenge you, here and now.”  


Alice understood Kirito's hesitation. He was clearly still recovering himself, from the injuries that had led to their meeting. More, she knew he was worried about her, and she couldn't deny his concerns had merit. She grew more accustomed to her mechanical body by the day, but she was still far from mastering it. Her balance never felt quite right, even writing the address on the label for the box she'd used to come to his house had been frustratingly difficult. Seeing the time as numbers floating in the corner of her vision, along with numbers representing the energy left in her body, was still disorienting.  


By any measure, she was nowhere close to as fit as she was in the body she'd always known, in another world.  


Which was exactly why she needed this. If she was going to move forward, she _needed_ to do this. To test her sword against Kirito's, as she had once before.  


Facing him squarely, Alice flexed her steel fingers on the hilt of the shinai—and in that moment, everything fell into place. Smooth as anything she'd ever done, she brought the wooden blade up above her head, settling it precisely in the stance of the High Norkia Style's Heavens and Mountain Break skill.  


In that instant, her body did exactly as she told it. The unnatural feeling of mechanical fingers and limbs fell away, replaced with the certainty she'd always had in her swordsmanship.  


How that looked to Kirito, she didn't know. She only knew that he saw something in her, and his hesitation vanished. His knees bent, his left foot moved forward; his right hand swept his own shinai back and to his side, left hand raised in front of him. Almost the stance of the Serlut Style's Whirling Current, Alice thought, but not quite.  


This was Kirito's Aincrad Style. This was what she'd faced once before, and Alice found herself smiling. “This takes me back,” she mused. “To when we crossed swords in that garden, on the Eightieth Floor of the Cathedral. At the time, I thought you a mere novice.”  


“Well,” he retorted, grinning back at her, “you _did_ beat me up pretty bad that time. Just don't expect it to be so easy today!”  


“I should hope not!”  


A moment of stillness, watching each other. There was no referee, no one to signal the match's beginning. They didn't need one. In that moment, Alice felt more attuned to Kirito than she ever had before, recognizing in him the same spirit of a swordsman that she nurtured within herself. When the time came, their smiles dropped at once.  


With twin shouts, they leapt for each other, across the dojo's floor. Alice's sword came down from above, with all the power that was the hallmark of the High Norkia Style. Kirito's flashed forward to meet it, with the speed that seemed the mark of the Aincrad Style. In the middle of the Kirigaya dojo, the two wooden blades met.  


For an endless moment, they clashed, and Alice's soul soared. This, _this_ was what she'd been looking for. A feeling she'd feared lost, after being pulled from the only world she'd ever known. The feeling of blades clashing, in a battle against a skilled opponent—whichever of them won the duel in the end, she would have no regrets—  


_Crunch._  


Alice had barely a moment to be surprised, when the clashing shinai splintered and snapped apart. Suddenly, there was nothing between her and Kirito, and their combined momentum slammed them together. Together, and down onto the hard wooden floor.  


Alice's new body, strange as it was, was impressive, but not perfect. It took a few moments before the room stopped spinning around her, and she was able to orient herself. Only then did she find herself kneeling over Kirito, staring down at his face from a much closer distance than she was accustomed to, as the youth moaned in pain.  


“Ouch….”  


She stared at the red mark on his forehead, belatedly realizing exactly what had happened. Unable to help herself, she grinned down at him. “That would be my victory, then,” she said smugly. “Secret Technique: Steel Headbutt!”  


He squinted up at her. “I've never heard of that technique,” he complained. “I spent a year at the Academy, and believe it or not, I _did_ pay attention….”  


“I just invented it.” Feeling a wild happiness, a profound _relief,_ Alice found herself giggling. “You can hardly complain, after all the times you surprised people with your Aincrad Style!”  


Kirito didn't seem to have a comeback to that. That, as far as she was concerned, confirmed her victory.  


Then, impulsively, she lowered herself to hug him. “Kirito,” she murmured into his ear. “Thank you. Now I know… I can live in this world. I can put up with the banquets, with this steel body, with everything—so long as I can still swing a sword. If I can still be a swordswoman, then I am still Alice Synthesis Thirty. Still myself. Now I know my battle goes on. As does yours, Kirito, if you're still a swordsman.”  


Slowly, tentatively, she felt his arms go around her back, and she relaxed gratefully into his embrace. She wondered, then, if he knew how she felt about him. It was something she'd proclaimed to the world, once, yet she'd not said his name, and he'd not yet awakened at the time.  


She wanted to tell him. But he was right, when he pointed out how little they'd been able to speak before. So she would wait, at least a little longer. Having an excuse to be in his arms, having reaffirmed her own existence, was good enough for now.  


“You're right, Alice,” Kirito whispered then. “It's not over. We both have things we need to do.” There was a gentle, hesitant touch on her hair. “…I'm almost as lost as you, back in this world after so long. Let's find the way together.”  


Alice smiled, knowing he couldn't see it. “Yes. Let's.” She let herself enjoy the hug a few moments longer, then reluctantly pulled back, rising to her feet. “Come, Kirito,” she said, reaching down to pull him to his feet. “Show me more of your swordsmanship.” She paused, glancing with him at the shattered remains of two practice swords. “…Carefully.”

###### 

By the time Kirito got to bed that night, he was exhausted. Bad enough the exertion of the day, which was really still a bit much for him when he was still recovering. Worse, in a lot of ways, was the _mental_ wringer he'd been put through.  


Flopping down on his bed, he couldn't help a groan. He was used to his life in the real world being more grounded than the adventures he could never seem to avoid in the virtual. This particular day had been far closer to something from his days stuck in _SAO_ than even the mess with the Augma augmented reality units a few months—and over two subjective years—previous.  


Kirito covered his eyes with his arm, in a vain effort to block out the day's events. _Starting with Alice shipping herself here in a cardboard box. Naked. Seriously, what was up with that? Would it have been_ that _hard to find a bigger box? If Mom or Suguha_ had _been there when I opened it… nope, not going to think about that._  


He _really_ wasn't going to think about what would've happened if his father had been home when he opened Alice's Box. For all that Kirigaya Minetaka was right that he needed to focus on becoming a productive member of society now, something in Kirito's soul was wounded by his father's seeming assumption that he'd gotten into so much trouble on purpose.  


His father's expectation's—society's expectations—would have him put all that aside. Put down the sword, and focus on education from now on. He might be allowed to work with Rath, with the research and development of VR technology, but he would never again be allowed to be part of the adventure.  


As badly wounded as he'd been by his experiences in the virtual worlds, Kirito couldn't help but resent the idea of giving it all up. After two years in the Steel Castle in the Sky, and another two—however subjective—in Underworld, he was a swordsman. As much as he still loved the pure technology of computers, he was—would always be—the Black Swordsman of Aincrad.  


The idea of giving that up hurt. He didn't think his father would ever really understand that.  


_I'm surprised Dad didn't blink when Alice called him “Father”. If he knew how Alice showed up, I don't think I'd have gotten off so easily._  


Not that Kirito really wanted to think about _that,_ either. Not when he so badly needed sleep. He was still coming to grips with exactly how Alice saw him. He'd realized, kind of, that she saw him as more than just a friend, but going _that_ far…. He wasn't absolutely sure she knew what she was implying, to a Japanese household.  


He still wasn't sure how he felt about that himself.  


_Worry about it tomorrow,_ Kirito told himself, feeling sleep beckon. Dragging a light blanket up to his shoulders, he sank gratefully back into his pillow. _She's only here for one night, I can… maybe talk it over with Asuna later. She's been after me to get a girlfriend for years now…._  


Maybe it was the day's reminders of _Sword Art Online_ , or maybe the partial memory wipe Higa had given him had muddled things, but it wasn't the bitter memories of Underworld that filled his sleep that night. A confusing swirl of moments from Aincrad played out for his slumbering mind, mixing in people he could vaguely recognize even in sleep had never been there.  


Sinon in an odd green outfit, helping with a bow in the world that had no ranged weapons; Leafa appearing from nowhere, in that world where everyone wore their real faces. Fragments of a duel with the Absolute Sword, on the glass pane above the crumbling Aincrad.  


Alice, lending her sword, even though she hadn't even been born when the Steel Castle fell….  


“Kirito,” a voice called, breaking into those warped shards of dream and memory. “Wake up, Kirito….”  


Waking up was the last thing he wanted to do. But the voice was insistent, and something was shaking his shoulder. Groaning, Kirito cracked his eyes opened, ready to complain at whoever was bothering him—and stopped short. Looking down at him from only centimeters was a pair of deep blue eyes, which belonged to no member of the Kirigaya household.  


“Alice—?! Oof!”  


The uncannily-human hand that clamped over his mouth cut him off before he could yelp too loudly. “Keep your voice down,” Alice hissed. “I would not have us disturb anyone else.”  


When she pulled her hand away, Kirito pushed himself upright, adrenaline making even the dark of night crystal clear. “If you don't want to disturb anyone, why are you here?” he got out, forcing his own voice low. A quick glance at the clock told him it was barely three in the morning. “And why are you dressed like that?”  


By the moonlight streaming in through the window, he could see that all Alice was wearing as she stood by his bed was a long blue t-shirt, barely down to the middle of her thighs. By that ethereal light, even the few external signs she did have of her robotic nature were invisible.  


Still half-asleep, for all the false clarity of adrenaline, Kirito couldn't help but fixate on her legs. In the armor he most associated with her, they weren't a feature he'd ever seen much of.  


Alice saw him looking, blinked in obvious confusion—then quickly yanked the hem of her shirt farther down. “St-stop staring,” she said, glancing away. “I could hardly sleep in my uniform. I had to borrow this from Suguha.”  


That was probably the first thing that night that made sense. Though only if he didn't think about it too hard; getting into why there was a robot girl knight in his bedroom wearing nothing but a shirt… was way too easy to get lost in, he really _did_ need sleep.  


Realizing he was still staring, Kirito quickly shook his head. Coughing into his hand, he whispered, “Sorry.”  


“…It's fine,” she murmured, after a long pause. “Likely you do not remember—at least not well—but we did share a bed for half a year. It's rather late to react so strongly.”  


“A-ah…. I see.” And he did, kind of. Though he was baffled by how she was alternating between embarrassed and cavalier, the latter attitude did kind of make sense. Even if he remembered only brief moments of it, the six months he'd spent in Alice's care would've been a long time for her to get used to close contact with him.  


It was probably his sleep-deprived state that left Kirito wishing he remembered a bit more of it. Even groggy, he was sure she wouldn't have appreciated the sentiment.  


Alice glanced at him sidelong, peering through half-lowered lashes. What she was thinking, he didn't know, but she very abruptly sat in the chair at his desk. “Anyway!” she said, quietly but sharply. “I did have a reason for coming tonight. May I continue, please?”  


“Ah, of course! Please.” Kirito quickly bowed his head. “Sorry for making things weird.”  


“…It's fine,” she repeated, looking away again. Then she made a sound like yet unlike clearing her throat, and fixed a serious gaze on him. “A few minutes ago, I was contacted through the remote messaging art—that is, the network.”  


“An email?” _She has wireless internet in her head,_ Kirito realized with a chill. _That's a crazy security vulnerability. I'd better have a_ talk _with Rath in the morning…. Later._ “Who's it from?”  


“That, I'm afraid, is the question. The message had no sender listed, and—oh, it's simpler if I just show you.”  


_Yep. I am_ really _going to have to talk to Doctor Rinko tomorrow,_ he thought, watching with unease as Alice turned to stare at the printer on his desk. Without any visible action, the device came to life, and with no apparent input quickly spat out a printout. _And check_ my _network security. Alice shouldn't have been able to hijack my wireless that easily!_  


Kirito wasn't sure which was scarier, honestly, the security hole in Alice's head or the Knight's ability to hack his stuff.  


Either way, three in the morning was no time to work out coding issues. Anyway, Alice had come to him for advice on the mysterious message, so that was what he was going to worry about right then. Retrieving the short printout, he quickly looked it over.  


As she'd said, the sender line was blank. There was a time stamp, and an address he assumed was Alice's own, but no subject. That was enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck, but if anything the body of the mystery email made it even worse.  


**[Ascend the White Tower, arrive in that world. Cloudtop Garden. Great Kitchen Armory. Morning Star Lookout. Sacred Fountain Stairway. Grand Corridor of Spiritual Light.]**  


Well, now Kirito certainly understood why Alice was perturbed. Bad enough to receive a message with neither sender nor subject. Worse for it to contain cryptic references to places no one in the real world should have even known about—and Kirito knew no one should, because he _did._ With the nature of Underworld, the only people who should've had anything close to that detailed knowledge were himself and Alice.  


He wasn't absolutely certain about the Grand Corridor. What a kitchen had to do with an armory, he didn't know, but he was pretty sure he knew the general location. _And the Cloudtop Garden is where Alice and I first crossed blades in the Central Cathedral itself._  


When he voiced that thought, frowning pensively at the paper, Alice nodded in agreement. “Indeed it was,” she said, smiling wryly. “At the time, I had no idea why the two of you had any interest in me. I was more concerned with your reckless bravery—and just pure recklessness, when your desperate attack threw us both out of the Cathedral.”  


“Ah… did I do something like that?” Kirito chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Well, I wasn't able to beat you blade-to-blade, so, y'know, desperate times….”  


“And then,” she said, rolling right over him, “we climbed clear to the Morning Star Lookout.” She arched one eyebrow at him. “As I remember it, you called me an idiot no fewer than eight times, while we hung together from a sword thrust into the Cathedral's wall.”  


That, he remembered vividly. It was a good thing he didn't suffer from acrophobia, or that precarious climb would never have been possible. As it was…. “I had to get you thinking _somehow,”_ he pointed out, defensive. “You were going to just let yourself fall and die!”  


“Mm. True.” Alice surprised him with another wry smile. “Truthfully, I enjoyed it. Never before had I had such an honest quarrel with someone. That… may have been the first time I truly felt alive.”  


Huh. The funny thing was, Kirito could believe that. Easily. Both because of what he'd seen of the lives of Integrity Knights in general, and because that just seemed to be how he first got acquainted with girls in general. After Asuna and Sinon, Alice was at least the third girl he'd first met when they were in a slump, and argued with a lot for awhile.  


None of which, of course, addressed the main question. The seemingly random set of locations told them nothing except that someone knew things they shouldn't have been able to—especially after Alice took note of the fact that she was only three people in living memory who'd known of the Sacred Fountain Stairway, and the other two had died during his time in Underworld.  


For a few moments, Kirito sat on his bed, staring at the bizarre message, trying to ignore the way Alice's legs stood out while she sat in his desk chair. He liked to think he had some skill at puzzles, but here there just wasn't enough material to go on. Nothing hidden in the time stamp or recipient's address, as far as he could tell, and the email's opening phrase meant nothing to either of them.  


He was about ready to just pack it in for the night, try again when he'd gotten some sleep, and maybe had a chance to run it by Doctor Koujiro. Only when giving the printout a last, frustrated look did he notice something. _Wait. That's a normal comma in the first line, but the second… periods. Like a list, or…._  


Kirito looked up quickly. “Alice, can you tell me which floors, exactly, each of those locations were on?”  


Alice blinked at him. “What? Well, you should certainly remember some of them yourself, but if you insist….” She rattled them off quickly, and frowned when he bent to scribble the numbers on the printout. “What are you doing, Kirito?”  


“I thought so!” Looking at the list—that wasn't really a list—he nodded sharply to himself. “It's the right number of digits, even if the format's a few years old…. It's an IP address!”  


She stared at him, patience visibly wearing thin. “Which means…?”  


“Um. It's… it's a path to connect with a server. Like what the email is on,” he added hastily, when her frown began to turn thunderous. “Or the games I play. And there's only one server I can think of that the sender might be talking about, if they're using the floors of the Central Cathedral as the code.”  


Alice Synthesis Thirty was not the same person as her body's original owner, Alice Zuberg. One thing the two Alices shared, though, was a sharp mind, and she gave another of those not-quite-gasps. “You mean…this is a path to Underworld? To… to my world…?”  


“I'm sure of it! I mean, I'll have to do a trace, but we can do that from Rath easily enough, and I just can't imagine this could mean anything else—”  


The only warning Kirito had was a whirring of actuators, and then Alice was throwing herself at him. The armful of Integrity Knight toppled him, almost pressing him flat on the mattress before he could catch himself—and he didn't care, because if the sobs he was sure he was hearing had to be imaginary, the emotion in her voice wasn't.  


“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear. “I know I must learn to live in your world, and I believe I've found the path to do so. Even so… I can't stand the thought of abandoning my world completely. If I can still return—if I can still see my sister—then I know I'll be strong enough to keep going here, as well. Thank you, Kirito.”  


He could only nod silently into her hair. That, he understood all too well, from his own experiences being cut off from one world or another. Right down to being separated from family, family that he hadn't properly appreciated until it was almost too late.  


_We even have someone in common here, I think. That message… that was you, wasn't it, Kayaba? I don't know why you did this, but I have to thank you. …Heh. You'd just say we don't have the kind of relationship for that, wouldn't you?_  


_Fine, then. I'll look after that world, too. It was built from the World Seed, so it's my responsibility as much as yours._  


At length, Alice pulled away. “I… suppose this is no hour to attempt the journey,” she said softly, looking torn between giddy happiness and anxiety. Glancing uncertainly between Kirito and the door, she added, almost in a whisper, “I should go back to bed.”  


Yet she didn't move, and Kirito could guess why. Suguha had readily accepted her, true, especially after learning of the Integrity Knight's interest in kendo. Their parents had raised no objections at all to her staying the night, for all his father's other concerns.  


But she doesn't know them. Not yet. She's a stranger here, and I'm the only one she knows at all.  


Kirito almost didn't say anything, even then. But he remembered another Knight telling him, long ago, to speak up when he had the chance. Now, even he could tell, was a time when he needed to do just that.  


Awkwardly clearing his throat, he stood, and gestured to his bed. “Do you… want to stay tonight, Alice? I mean,” he added quickly, “like you said, we shared a bed for six months back in Underworld, so… this shouldn't be a big deal, right?”  


For a long moment, she just looked at him, uncertainty obvious in her eyes. Then, with a small, shy smile, Alice nodded.

###### 

A couple of minutes later, tucked back into bed, Kirito was questioning his own judgment, just a little bit. Yes, they'd shared a bed in Underworld—but he was pretty sure that one had been a lot bigger. His own, in the real world, was just barely wide enough for two to fit at all.  


He'd managed to dig out a spare pillow, at least. That didn't change the fact that they were crammed in so close that his shoulder was touching Alice's, and just in lying down they'd almost ended up holding hands by accident.  


Kirito had shared beds with girls before even when not half-dead and mostly comatose, back in _Sword Art Online_. Never had the confines been quite so cramped, making it impossible to even pretend to himself that he was alone, and that nothing inappropriate could happen.  


_If she had a problem, she'd have said so,_ he told himself firmly, resolutely closing his eyes. _Alice doesn't hold back when she's mad at me. There's no problem here, so all I have to do is go to sleep. …And then hope Sugu doesn't wonder where Alice went in the night, I probably should've thought of that…._  


A sound like a sigh came from all too close. “You're still awake, Kirito?”  


The voice was barely a whisper, but thundered in Kirito's hyper-sensitive ears. “You could tell, Alice?” he breathed back, not even trying to feign sleep.  


He could just _feel_ her roll her eyes. “I spent six months watching over you every night, Kirito. And from what Asuna has told me, your habits aren't much different when you are not comatose. Believe me, I can tell when you are asleep, and when you are not.” A pause. “…Does this truly bother you so much?”  


Kirito wasn't sure what to make of her tone. All these years having mostly girls for friends, and he still didn't quite understand them. He could tell, though, that he was treading dangerous ground, and chose his words carefully. “I'm… not used to this,” he said at length. “…Are you?”  


When he turned his head to look at her, her face uncomfortably close to his, he found those startlingly real blue eyes already looking back at him. “Only with you,” she said softly. “As an Integrity Knight… well. Though I admired Uncle Bercouli, and Eldrie looked up to me in turn, I could hardly claim to have had 'friends'.” Her lips twitched, in a strange smile. “It was thanks to you that I began to open up to others, and them only in the short time of the war with the Dark Territory. I'd not had much of a chance as of when I was forced to leave that world.”  


He found himself nodding at that. That, he realized, was something else he had in common with her. Before Aincrad, he'd had nothing at all resembling a social life, and it had taken him a long, long time to open up to anyone but Asuna. Then _SAO_ had ended, and it'd taken him months to really reconnect with everyone he'd met there.  


_And I was at least living in the same time frame as them. So many people in Underworld are… gone, by now._  


From the look in her eyes, Kirito could tell Alice was thinking about exactly that. Tentatively, he shifted his hand over to touch hers, very lightly. “Your sister is still waiting for you,” he reminded her. He didn't remember telling her that, but he'd been informed of the message his now-reset older self had given. “Some of the other Integrity Knights will still be around, too. I know it won't be the same, but you haven't lost everyone. I'll make sure you see them again soon.”  


Alice held his gaze for a long moment, then gave one of those imitation-sighs and nodded. “I know you will, Kirito. Thank you.”  


It was amazing, really, seeing how different she was from the hard-as-nails enforcer of the Administrator's will he'd originally met. The one who'd casually clobbered him and Eugeo, proven so dangerous he had to blast them both out of the Cathedral, and spent the rest of that insane day alternating between threatening to kill him and thanking him.  


He really did have to wonder just what had happened, those six months he'd been comatose. Sometime, he hoped to find out. In the meantime, it did at least make it easier for him to make the suggestion he'd been meaning to since the strange message had come in.  


“Alice,” he began; and paused, swallowing against the sudden dryness in his mouth. Just as she raised an exasperated eyebrow, he continued, “After we've been back to Underworld… I'd like to show you my world. Aincrad, I mean. The Steel Castle.”  


The raised eyebrow reversed into a frown—a thoughtful one, he thought with some relief, not an angry one. “The world where you first became a swordsman?”  


“Yeah. The place where 'Kirito' was born.” Not something he really thought about much anymore. Or he hadn't, before two years and more in Underworld had forced him to live as the Black Swordsman again, this time without _anyone_ to remind him of the real world.  


Since coming back from that, Kirito had been thinking a lot about himself, and who he'd become. Half the reason he was so bothered by his father's insistence that he focus on finding a proper career IRL was that he honestly wasn't sure anymore that he could.  


_Not so different from Alice, am I?_  


Maybe that showed in his face. Maybe she had her own reasons already. But slowly, Alice smiled, and gave a small nod. “I'd like that, Kirito. Having met you, and your friends… I think 'your' world may suit me better than this one. …And I should very much like to see the place that gave you the 'Aincrad style'.”  


Kirito found himself smiling back. Though he wasn't quite ready to say it, he thought revisiting his old haunts would be a good way to get to know her better; it was, after all, a world built along lines they both understood. He suspected they'd both find it easier to relax there than in the “real world”, and in some ways more than either of them would in an Underworld that had progressed subjective centuries without them.  


That settled, he decided he might just be able to sleep finally. Turning his head back toward the ceiling, he closed his eyes again. “Okay, then. …Goodnight, Alice.”  


“Goodnight, Kirito.”  


Smiling to himself again, Kirito settled back into his pillow, waiting for sleep—and then the bed unexpectedly shifted.  


It was all he could do to keep from yelping, when Alice abruptly rolled onto her side. That carried her right over his arm, leaving her head resting on his shoulder, distractingly soft chest pressing against him, and bare legs suddenly tangled with his. “A-Alice?!” he hissed.  


Because she was _still_ wearing just the borrowed t-shirt, and in her new position it was… very difficult… not to let his mind wander where it shouldn't. Like to the question of exactly how anatomically-correct her robot body really was, since it had certainly looked realistic enough in the glimpse he'd gotten when she came out of the box, and with how soft her skin felt—  


“Breathe, Kirito,” Alice whispered sharply, looking up at him. Now the familiar annoyance was back in her eyes. “Honestly, you are far too excitable sometimes.”  


“But—uh—why—?”  


She shook her head, and settled firmly into the crook of his arm. “If you have to ask the question, you are not going to understand the answer,” she said into his side. “…For now, just remember that this is my only night here. I would rather savor the company while I have the chance.”  


That… was something Kirito couldn't really argue with, knowing Alice's circumstances. He still felt horribly self-conscious, and keeping his thoughts away from very dangerous topics was growing more difficult by the second, but he couldn't argue with her.  


The question remained of whether she'd approve of the position when she was more awake—robot body or not, she had to be at least as sleepy as he was—and how to make sure Suguha never, ever found out. Neither of those questions were getting answered at such an hour, though, when even with his embarrassment Kirito found his eyes growing heavy.  


_Well, if I'm going to die in the morning anyway, I might as well make the most of it._  


Curling his trapped arm around Alice's shoulders, feeling her smile into him with the movement, Kirito decided to let tomorrow worry about itself.

###### 

###### Thursday, August 20th, 2026

“Onii-chan! Some packages came for you!”  


Three days after Alice's unexpected visit, and two after they'd tested the backdoor into Underworld, Kirito had been kind of hoping for a quiet day. Since last he'd heard, Rath was working out changes to security to account for the mind-boggling vulnerability he'd pointed out Alice's wireless connection to be, he'd thought he might even get it.  


_Should've known better,_ he thought, sleepily descending the stairs toward the front door. “Where is it, Sugu?” he asked of his sister, who stood by said door in full school uniform, shinai bag slung over her shoulder. “And who's it from?”  


Suguha shrugged. “I had the delivery people put them in the dojo—no room in here. I think it's from Rath? Dunno what it is, some of it was pretty big. Are you supposed to be setting up an STL for home testing or something?”  


“Not that anybody told _me,”_ he answered, already reaching for his shoes. “But I don't know half of what's going on these days, so I guess it could be.” Though he was starting to feel an odd sense of dread, like his entire world was about to be upended. Trying to push that thought away, he changed the subject. “You've got practice today, Sugu?”  


“Uh-huh. Next tournament, I'm totally making it to the finals, so I've gotta push it!” She patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck with whatever they've got you doing now, Onii-chan. See you tonight!”  


With his sister rushing out the door, Kirito found himself alone in the Kirigaya household. His mother was already at work, and his father had left for another business trip, now that it was clear Kirito really was on the mend. Kirigaya Minetaka probably wouldn't be back for another month.  


Once, Kirito might've felt lonely. Today, as he headed out the back door and toward the dojo, he was kind of relieved. Whatever Rath had seen fit to drop in his lap, he wanted a chance to look it over by himself. _Especially if a certain someone has done something crazy… again. I don't_ think _she would, but then I didn't expect what happened the first time…._  


Inside the dojo were, indeed, several packages, and as Suguha had warned him, a couple of them weren't exactly small. If he wasn't mistaken, it really was possible Rath had shipped him an entire Soul Translator unit. He couldn't imagine _why,_ but then he'd given up on expecting the world to make sense.  


One of them was also a disturbingly familiar size, fitting nicely with his sense of dread. So, of course, his first order of business was to close and block the door. There wasn't much he could do about the windows, but the chances of someone trying to look in through those were pretty low, and he could at least make sure no one walked in on him at a bad moment.  


Then, and only then, did Kirito rip the tape away from that one box, and pull open the flaps. As he'd feared, blue eyes looked up at him, above a smile he thought was downright cheeky. “Finally,” came a voice muffled by packing material. “A little help, Kirito?”  


Wincing, he took the hand that reached out, pulled—carefully, this time—and in a moment, a naked Alice was stepping onto the dojo's wooden floor. The smirk on her face was entirely inappropriate to the circumstances; she looked downright smug, which was both annoying and just plain _weird._  


Not that he saw the smirk for long. As soon as he was sure she had her balance, Kirito quickly turned away, pulling his phone from his pocket and calling up one particular number.  


As soon as it connected, he simply barked, “Why?”  


_“Security, and mental health,”_ Doctor Koujiro replied at once, obviously anticipating the call and the question. _“Even now, Kirito-kun, your real name has never been made public. A private residence is less conspicuous than one of Rath's facilities—and you know the Japanese public. They'll have seen a foreign, blonde girl in a school uniform; most people won't look twice if she's wearing something else.”_  


“Most,” Kirito repeated, frowning.  


_“There are always risks, Kirito-kun,”_ Rinko acknowledged. _“We can't absolutely guarantee her safety anywhere. This has some advantages of its own, and I think it's important for her.”_ A deliberate pause. _“What use keeping her completely safe, if she falls apart on us mentally? You know what a miracle it is she's stable at all.”_  


He did. All too well. After he'd recovered, and Kikuouka had come clean about Project Alicization, Kirito had been shown the early experiments with artificial Fluctlights. Between those, and what he'd personally seen happen to Raios Antinous—yeah, he knew the kind of horrible things that could go wrong. Even if Alice was the most stable of them all….  


Well. She was still a person, whom he knew perfectly well was horribly depressed.  


Sighing, Kirito's shoulders slumped. “So, you're suggesting she stay here, long-term?” Not that there was any doubt at this point, he thought ruefully, glancing at the large boxes still sitting unopened on the dojo floor. He couldn't imagine any other reason for Rath to have sent him so much, alongside Alice herself.  


_“Yes. We've sent enough equipment with her for you to be able to handle basic maintenance on-site, and we're taking discreet security precautions. And don't worry, I've already discussed it with your parents. Your father, I believe, thinks this is a good compromise for your own future, and your mother called the suggestion 'charming'.”_  


Oh. Great. He wondered briefly exactly what his parents thought was going on, and decided he didn't really want to know. “And… why wasn't _I_ warned about this?”  


He could just hear the smile. _“Because Alice wanted it to be a surprise.”_  


Sighing, Kirito ended the call, and turned back to Alice—only to quickly look away again. “Why are you naked again?” he asked plaintively. “And why haven't you started getting dressed already?!”  


She'd turned her back, at least, taking the most dangerous view away. And she'd pulled on a simple pair of underwear. That still left quite an expanse of bare skin, and from the look she tossed over her shoulder, she didn't even care. “Because I don't know how to even start putting this on,” she said, gesturing to the pile of cloth she'd pulled out of the box during his phone call. “Uncle wore something like this, but I would hardly have asked him how any of it worked.”  


Risking another glance, Kirito quickly had to concede the point. Rather than her usual _SAO_ Survivor School uniform, Alice had this time brought an outfit more befitting of a traditional Japanese swordsman. Hakama pants, uwagi jacket, obi… and, if he wasn't mistaken, sarashi.  


Yeah, he wasn't surprised she didn't know how to put any of that on. _He_ did, and that was exactly why his face quickly turned bright red. “You can't be serious!” he blurted. “Look, this is something Sugu should be helping you with, not—”  


“Suguha is not here,” Alice said sharply. “And if you're going to be maintaining my body, you had better get used to this anyway. You are the—mechatronics?—expert, not her.” She half-turned, bringing a dangerous amount of skin into view. “Now, are you going to help me get dressed, or am I going to stay like this all day?”  


It was one of those moments where the only reason Kirito was able to do one thing was because the alternative was far more frightening. If he did leave Alice that way, and waited for Suguha, his sister was going to know he'd seen the Knight like this. And that he'd _left_ her in that state all day.  


That, he was sure, would be bad.  


So, trying to keep his outlook as clinical as possible, Kirito picked up the cloth bindings of the sarashi, and very gingerly started wrapping them around Alice's chest. As much to distract himself from all-too-genuine feel of her skin—and the sound she made when his fingers touched her—he said, “Just so you know, I've never had to do this part before. So don't expect it to be perfect.”  


“I understand,” she said softly, lifting her arms out of the way as he wrapped the cloth around. “Hopefully, when I've had more time to accustom myself to this body, I will be able to do this myself. If not….” She glanced over her shoulder, an unreadable look in her eyes. “I trust you'll get better yourself with practice, Kirito.”  


He really, really hoped it would be the former option. His feelings about the Knight were confused enough as it was, without this level of enforced intimacy.  


Putting that uncomfortable idea aside, Kirito retrieved the uwagi—a familiar blue, he noticed, with some kind of gold design covering much of the back—and when she'd slipped her arms into the sleeves, carefully wrapped it around the front. “Left flap over right,” he told as he did so. “It's only right over left for the dead, or if you're cosplaying as a ghost or something.”  


“Ah.” Alice surprised him with a giggle at that. “Indeed, that's hardly the impression I want to give. …Thank you for the warning, Kirito.”  


Kirito nodded silently, making a mental note to give her a more thorough overview of Japanese customs later. She was, after all, just as out of her depth in his world as he'd been in hers, and from the sound of things the public appearances she'd thus far made hadn't prepared her as much as they should have.  


Tying the obi belt was, at least, a more familiar task. He'd had to help Suguha with that in years past, so it wasn't even that awkward. “This ties in the back,” he said, using the explanation to put off thinking about what came next. “Putting the knot in the front—um. Let's say that implies something you don't want to be implying.”  


She looked back over her shoulder again, eyes narrowed. “And you're not explaining it to me… why, exactly?”  


“Because there are some things I'm _not_ taking the heat for,” Kirito said bluntly, stepping back to examine his own handiwork. “Somebody else can brave the AoE of your temper for once.”  


Not bad, he judged after a moment. There was a bit of a bulge under the uwagi's back—bearing a golden dragon, he recognized now—where he hadn't quite gotten the sarashi tied as smoothly as he'd hoped, and the obi was just a little crooked. Otherwise, considering he hadn't done the one in years and the other ever, it didn't look too bad.  


“Coward,” Alice said, but without heat. Without further comment, she followed his gesture and stepped into the hakama. “…If I may be frank, I would not have asked Suguha to do this even had she been here.”  


Carefully pulling the hakama up to her waist, Kirito set about wrapping the ties around. “Why's that?” he asked, kind of afraid to hear the answer.  


“She is your sister, and I do trust her—but I don't _know_ her.” When his hands went around the front, bringing the ties over to her left hip, she brushed one with her own. “Though I don't yet know you as well as I would like, for six months I performed this duty for you. I can think of no other with whom I would be at all comfortable doing the same for me.”  


“…Oh.”  


Kirito wondered, then, if she really was as relaxed about the whole thing as she seemed. Her body allowed her to conceal her feelings better than any human could; it was possible that, after she'd had her fun at his expense, the reality of the situation had sunk in for her.  


_But she's having me do this anyway. …I don't know if anyone else has ever trusted me to do something like this for them._  


Having tied that last knot over the Knight's left hip, Kirito stepped back again to look over the finished product. It was, he supposed, a bit rough overall. Considering it was the first time he'd ever had to dress a girl pretty much from the lowest layer, though, he figured he was justified in calling it a success.  


Fully dressed now in the loose clothing of a swordswoman, Alice took a moment to look herself over. Her hands traced over the folds and knots of the unfamiliar outfit, and she took a couple of careful steps. Checking how well she could move in them, Kirito thought.  


That much seemed to satisfy her, but a small frown creased her forehead anyway. Abruptly, she snapped her fingers, and crossed to one of the smaller boxes that had been delivered with her. A moment's fumbling, and she had it open.  


Kirito recognized the long, narrow object she retrieved as a wooden bokken, a practice blade closer in form to a real sword than the bamboo shinai they'd broken against each other a few days before. With a firm nod, she tucked the sword into her obi.  


Then she turned to face him. Left hand resting on the bokken, right hand over her heart, she gave a formal bow. “I am Alice Synthesis Thirty, Knight of the Human Empire,” she said solemnly. “From today, I will be in your care.”  


Straightening his shoulders, he returned the bow. “I am… Kirito,” he said, voice catching. “Black Swordsman of Aincrad. …Welcome, Alice.”  


Alice smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, here we have it: my first significant attempt to write a genuinely short story. …Not sure how well that's working out, since this was meant as a one-shot and has already ballooned to a two-shot. I _think_ I can contain the rest in a single chapter, but this being _me,_ I'm not going to assume that to be a fact.
> 
> This was born of two things: my belief that, with only slight tweaking, much of the final episode of the anime could be played off in a satisfyingly romantic way, and my frustration with the near-total lack of Kirito/Alice fics in general.
> 
> I should perhaps start by acknowledging I don't like Eugeo, so I am a tad biased. That said, I don't think it's biased to point out pairing Eugeo with Alice Synthesis Thirty makes _no_ sense. First, because she's not even the same person he's interested in—which if you think about it has _really_ creepy implications, since Alice Zuberg never matured beyond the age of eleven or so—and second, because his canon, explicitly-stated intention is to _kill her._ He may not have any personal animosity toward Integrity Knight Alice, but Eugeo still intends to kill her to restore “his” Alice. …I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think that's a canon basis to pair the two of them.
> 
> Anyway! Anti-Eugeo rant over, back to matters more pertinent to the story. On the matter of how Alice reacts to Kirito seeing her in various states of undress, canon seems to be a bit fuzzy. The novels don't seem to mention her being naked in the box; the only such scene that does appear to be in the novel is her wearing just a shirt. In the novel version of that, on the one hand she does object to him staring, on the other hand she points out neither of them should be bothered by it after the six months she spent caring for him.
> 
> Since I saw considerable comedic and characterization potential in the anime version, I split the difference and did my best to apply that canon attitude toward the anime-only nudity. (And the anime-inspired scene at the end.)
> 
> Apologies if I got some of the details of Alice's outfit at the end wrong; it was meant to be more or less the kind of thing Suguha wears when practicing kendo, but my research into the specifics wasn't as detailed as I would've liked. I did my best, but my best may not have been good enough.
> 
> I realize this chapter ended up being mostly setup more than anything else, and exactly how its backstory differs from canon is probably a bit fuzzy. I honestly couldn't figure out how to organically fit the important details into this chapter's narrative, beyond a few vague implications; that said, I should be able to work them into the second chapter easily enough.
> 
> For now, let me just say that in this version Kirito and Asuna were never more than very close friends and battle partners.(Arranging a new pairing by having the canon one break up is not my style. Better to have it that it never occurred at all for the AU's purposes.)
> 
> About the second chapter. This one was mostly canon scenes with a more explicitly Kirito/Alice twist; next one will be completely original, exploring how their relationship develops as they finally have a chance to get to know each other while both are conscious. There should be less of Alice being under-dressed, but more fluff.
> 
> So. Think that about covers things for now? I can't make any promises about when that second chapter will be done, as my longtime readers know I do have two large-scale _SAO_ fics going as it is. This being a small side project, though, I hope to have it done… well, relatively soon. In the meantime, I hope this chapter is a decent snack for the deprived Kirito/Alice shippers. _-Solid_


End file.
